Colonialism, Horror, and Identity in The Buffalo Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
- Casey
- Apr 17
- 3 min read
Stephen Graham Jones has never been a writer to take the easy path through horror. Known for his razor-sharp prose and deep explorations of Indigenous identity, Jones consistently delivers stories that unsettle not just because they scare us—but because they hold up a mirror to our history, our culture, and ourselves. With The Buffalo Hunter, his latest novel, which was just released in March 2025, Jones once again brings horror face-to-face with history, delivering a story that is as thought-provoking as it is blood-soaked.
Set in 1912 Montana, The Buffalo Hunter follows a Blackfeet vampire named Tim who is determined to hunt down a legendary creature of his kind. But this isn’t just a simple vampire tale. It’s a dark, emotionally layered meditation on justice, survival, and the weight of generational trauma—particularly through the lens of colonialism and the erasure of Native identity.
🩸 Vampires as Colonial Symbols
At first glance, the vampire might seem like just another familiar horror monster. But in Jones’s hands, the vampire becomes a perfect metaphor for colonialism. These are beings who take, consume, and leave devastation in their wake—often while cloaked in charm, civilization, or power.
Tim’s journey as a Blackfeet vampire navigating a white-dominated, settler-colonial world in early 20th-century America forces readers to confront the uncomfortable truth: that monsters don't only live in legends. They often wear the face of empire, and their destruction is far more insidious than a fang to the throat.
Jones uses vampirism not just as a vehicle for terror, but as a powerful symbol of assimilation, displacement, and the seductive nature of power. It’s no accident that Tim's confrontation with another vampire—one more predatory and possibly more “civilized”—reflects a deeper clash between cultural survival and the long shadow of colonization.
👣 A Western Reimagined by Stephen Graham Jones
By setting The Buffalo Hunter in the American West, Jones taps into a genre that has historically romanticized settler violence and Indigenous erasure. But here, the Western is turned on its head.
Instead of cowboys and outlaws riding into the sunset, we get a grim, foggy frontier haunted by blood-drinkers and moral ambiguity. Tim doesn’t seek conquest—he seeks justice. And as he tracks his prey across the snow-covered plains, the landscape becomes both a hunting ground and a space of ancestral memory, trauma, and survival.
Jones dismantles the myth of the Wild West, showing it not as a place of rugged freedom, but as a site of violence, loss, and resilience. It's horror with a historical backbone—one that never forgets who paid the price for that so-called “progress.”
🧠 The Monster Within
As with much of Jones’s work, the horror in The Buffalo Hunter is not limited to the supernatural. There’s something deeper and more personal at play here—an exploration of what it means to live in a body marked by history.
Tim, as both a vampire and a Native man, carries the burden of dual alienation. He is not fully part of the human world, nor does he find comfort among monsters. His identity is fragmented, caught between past and present, survival and morality, vengeance and peace.
In that way, The Buffalo Hunter becomes a story not just of a hunt, but of self-reckoning. Who are we when our stories have been silenced? What does justice look like when it’s centuries overdue? And can anyone, even a vampire, escape the hunger for belonging?
🔥 Final Thoughts
The Buffalo Hunter isn’t just one of the most anticipated horror novels of 2025—it’s one of the most important. Stephen Graham Jones continues to push horror into vital, socially conscious territory, using genre conventions to illuminate truths that history books often avoid.
If you’re looking for a horror novel that bites hard and thinks deeply, this one belongs at the top of your reading list. Come for the vampires. Stay for the reckoning.
Are you excited for The Buffalo Hunter? Let me know your thoughts—and your favorite Stephen Graham Jones moment—in the comments.
Comments